It's hard to imagine a counterpoint to Scooter Libby's criminal case more apt and revealing than the case of Victor Rita, a North Carolina veteran who was convicted by the feds of lying under oath about buying an illegal machine gun.

Both Rita and Libby were convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in federal cases. Both were sentenced to around 30 months in jail. Both sentences were appealed, and Bush officials at the highest levels were involved in the appeals as they played themselves out in the past few months.

In their appeals, both Rita and Libby sought leniency based on their records of public service and current circumstances. Victor Rita served in the Marine Corps for 25 years, including tours of duty in Vietnam and Gulf War I. He is now advanced in age and in failing health. As a result of his crimes, he has reportedly been wiped out financially.

George W. Bush described Scooter Libby's career in public service as "exceptional," but a review of Libby's bio reveals him to be a neocon bureaucrat who held a series of political positions in Republican administrations before moving up to the White House with Cheney and Bush --- where he was either a witness to or a participant in skullduggery and shenanigans the half of which we don't yet know. Libby is in his late 50s, appears to be in good health, and was able to pay his $250,000 fine out of his checking account, probably with the help of a defense fund set up by powerful Republicans friends like Fred Thompson and Mary Matalan.

Earlier this year the appeals by Rita and Libby both took dramatic turns, at which point the similarities between the two cases came to an abrupt end.

Rita's moment came when his appeal was heard before the Supreme Court...

Contrary to earlier accounts, the hearing was not in 2006. It was less than five months ago, on Feb. 20, 2007. And the Bush administration's participation was not merely as a "friend of the court," as it has been described. The government was a party, the respondent, in the appeal.

At the Supreme Court, Bush's solicitor general, Paul Clement, urged that Rita's sentence be upheld on the grounds that it was reasonable --- a position very much in line with the administration's tough stance on sentencing. On June 21, the court issued its ruling, siding with the administration. Rita's appeal was denied.

Less than two weeks later, on July 3, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month sentence, calling it, without a trace of irony, "excessive."

What Rita so aptly reveals is that Bush's stated reasons for commuting Libby's sentence --- the harshness of the sentence and Libby's exceptional public service --- were bogus. We can only speculate about his real motives, and it is too soon to know whether the commutation will turn out to be a political blunder of the first order or a criminal act, both, or neither.

But there appears to be blood in the water. The Bushies are out in force trying to change the storyline by slamming the Wilsons and desperately downplaying the seriousness of Libby's crimes. (On Hardball yesterday, David Rivkin trotted out the thoroughly debunked claim that Valerie Wilson was not covert.)

Their obfuscation may not work as well this time because by commuting Libby's sentence, especially so soon after advocating upholding the nearly identical sentence of an elderly war veteran, Bush has shown his hand as never before. Americans --- even the ones who were not following the CIA leak scandal closely --- totally get it when someone in power buys off a witness who happens to know where all his bodies are buried.

This is just a part of a larger pattern of abuse of power to manipulate the justice system in order to protect political friends and persecute political enemies. The perfect example of the flip-side of the equation is just dawning on America...

The New York Times reported that a long-time Alabama Republican has signed an affidavit tying Karl Rove to the fabricated prosecution of former Dem Gov. Don Siegelman, making it a perfect example of the politicization of the Department of Justice. It is already well known that eight district attorneys who refused to participate in the coordinated political strategy were fired. Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Harpers Magazine and multiple other major media are starting to closely follow the Siegelman case, especially in light of the President commuting the sentence of “Scooter” Libby in a move designed to keep Republican "black ops" hidden.

Is Rep Conyers going to bring this up at the hearings? I suggest a cut and paste into an email to all of our Congress Critters. I'd like to see Bush himself have to answer the questions, but I won't hold my breath. And Tony Snow just keeps tapdancing.

I heard that the "Libby Defense" is already being used by defense attorneys all over the country, to request softer sentences for their clients who are convicted. Prosecutors are frustrated as hell.

Fitzgerald knew from day one of his investigation who "outed" Plame. That was his mission, and it was accomplished. If the goal were to jail someone for outing a "secret agent," why isn't Armitage in jail? Everything Fitzgerald did after Armitage's confession was a self-promotional witch hunt. Where were you guys on the midnight pardons of people who actually did something wrong in the last days of Bill Clinton?

I heard a legal expert give a great answer to Al Clarke. If a bank is robbed by 3 persons and one confesses, do we let the other 2 go? Libby had already lied to the FBI before Fitzgerald came onto the case. You should probably read the trial transcript so you can realize that seven people in the administration testified that Libby told them of Plames' status.In addition, that old "Clinton did it" excuse is getting old. This administration pledged to give not even the "appearance of impropriety" and be the examples of law and order.

I never could figure out the dark "reasoning" that does not understand you don't need an "underlying crime" (there is no such thing) when there are 5 "outlying crimes" and 4 convictions on those 5 counts.

Whether one lies out, under, or in, it is still a lie and when done under oath is perjury.

Add it up at "go figure" time, and it invariably leads to obstruction of justice.

And when cronies pardon cronies for "underlying reasons", that also is obstruction of justice. Which is the prime directive in the Department of Justice Just Us these daze.